The Floral Logistics Coalition, a group of floral
companies and associations in the U.S., began a pilot program on Aug. 2
that has the potential to speed up the movement of products through the
supply chain.
The program will introduce a global trade item number (GTIN) barcode that floral wholesalers and suppliers will use to track incoming and outgoing floral products. The universal barcodes will allow the product to be scanned directly into a computer, resulting in better organization and quicker entry. As it stands, barcodes have to be entered in manually and then invoiced, tracked and categorized, a time-consuming process.
The group is hoping that a GTIN system will help save the wholesalers time and in effect these savings could be passed along to retail florists. The pilot program has 25 participating companies and will last four weeks. Following the pilot program, the coalition will publish a report on the findings and look at how the floral industry can adopt the system.
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